By Danielle McCormick
The top three workforce management challenges facing organizations today are retention/turnover, engagement, and recruitment. While that may not surprise you, perhaps the realization that a resounding 93% of managers – the people you equip with managing performance and motivating your employees – admit they need training on how to coach employees.
Considering the competitive pull on talent in the industry right now, biofuel businesses should be filling as many gaps as they can to ensure their employees are satisfied, motivated, and productive. A crucial area to satisfy is the training and coaching of your management team so that they can properly train, coach, and empower their employees.
Training and Coaching – Creating a Roadmap for Success
When most people think of the word ‘coach’ they think of coaches for sports teams that provide direction and instruction. However, the origin of the word coach actually stems from ‘stagecoach,’ which references a vehicle intended to take someone along a route from where they are, to where they need to go. The concept of coaching in the business sense is not new, but the addendum of talent advisors to provide individual employee coaching and trainings sessions is a novelty for many businesses – and it’s proving successful.
How does it work? Through coaching sessions focused on clear, desired results, talent advisors are being hired for or within businesses based on the new goals or challenges they’re experiencing. Often, a talent advisor will use various behavioral assessments and coaching tools to help people get out of their own way. It’s not therapy, but rather time focused on identifying barriers toward progress and then walking through ways to remove them.
Some examples of coaching include:
· introducing a structured mentorship program to teach employees how to be successful;
· facilitating employee learning experiences;
· implementing learning, teambuilding, and development programs across offices;
· bridging generational gaps;
· developing natural talents; and
· cultivating leadership programs.
The payoffs for your business include improved employee productivity, increased employee engagement, improved retention, employee development (retention, commitment, satisfaction), and improved supervisor performance.
Making a small investment in fulfilling the needs of your team now, can pay off as a large dividend in securing your company’s people, culture, productivity, growth, and survival.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can improve your company’s coaching effectiveness, K·Coe Isom’s HR Consulting lead, Danielle McCormick, will be presenting on this topic at FEW in June. Be sure to check out her presentation on how we have made noticeable improvements for the cultures and performance of biofuel businesses.
Danielle McCormick is a principal and functional leader for K·Coe People, the Human Resources external consultancy team which provides expertise and HR service solutions for businesses. Contact her at danielle.mccormick@kcoe.com, or visit https://www.pinionglobal.com/services/kcoe-people/ for more information.
